Her laughter faded, and now she looked at me with kind, honest eyes. The eyes of someone who might become a friend.
Maybe she already had.
“As long as we’re being honest, Gray…” She took a breath, searching for her words, then said, “My brother cares for you a great deal. It’s… it’s good to see him like that. Happy.”
The words seemed to stick in her throat, each one pushed out with great effort.
God, there were so many layers to her relationship with Emilio. So many sharp edges and dark corners I could only guess at. But I truly didn’t want to push, and I sensed she’d reached the absolute farthest end of her comfort zone.
Exhaustion was settling into my bones, anyway. Stretching into a yawn, I rose from the chair and cleared away the dishes, ready to give her some privacy and head back into the warm embrace of my wolf.
But when I exited the kitchen and headed toward the hallway, Emilio was already standing there, unbuttoned jeans hanging off his hips, a wrinkled T-shirt tossed over his shoulder. The sight of his massive bare chest sent a fresh pulse of desire to my core, and I ogled him openly, hoping I wasn’t actually drooling.
But the severe look in his eyes told me this was not the time for ogling.
“Get dressed,” he said to us both, just as Elena’s phone started buzzing on the table. “That’ll be Lansky. I just got off the phone with him. Gray and I have a visitor at the precinct.”
Twenty-Nine
Emilio
Nine minutes and one harrowing drive later, we stood outside the RCPD interrogation room, staring through the one-way mirror at a witch I hadn’t seen—in the flesh, anyway—since Sophie’s murder.
Reva Monroe was so pale and thin, she was practically see-through. Dark circles lined her eyes, making them stand out starkly against her china-doll complexion. Her head had been shaved, covered now with the fuzz of new growth.
One of the female officers had helped her clean up, and now she wore a set of RCPD sweats. They were two sizes too big, but she looked grateful for the warmth, sitting at the table and sipping hot chocolate from a styrofoam cup.
I could only imagine what her living conditions had been like.
“She showed up here a little while ago, asking for you and Gray,” Lansky said to me. “She won’t talk to anyone else.”
“You get one of the EMTs to check her out?” I asked.
“Yes. She’s refusing to go to the hospital,” he said, “but they said she was stable. Dehydrated and hungry, a few scrapes, but no major injuries. She did tell us she hadn’t been physically assaulted, but said that others had been… experimented on.”
“Oh my God,” Gray whispered, shaking her head. She clenched her teeth, her eyes sparking with rage. Her magic spiked—I scented it in the air between us. “Can I go talk to her?”
I put my hand on her shoulder, giving her a squeeze. “I’ll go in with you.”
Reva looked up from her hot chocolate as we entered, a smile stretching across her face when she saw us.
“I knew you’d come,” she said.
Gray knelt before her, reaching for her hands. “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?”
Reva shook her head. “Not like that.”
“How did you even end up there?”
“Norah took me,” she said. “Delilah too. She put Delilah under some kind of spell, but not me. She said there was only one way for me to help my friends.”
“What way was that?” I asked gently, taking a seat across from her. I didn’t want her to be intimidated. The kid had been through enough already—the last thing she needed was a bunch of hulking cops standing around, staring down at her, demanding answers.
“She sold me to Jonathan. I don’t know how much she got, but probably not a lot.”
Madre María, the sadness in those eyes.
I scrubbed a hand over my mouth, trying to keep my emotions in check. I glanced at the mirror, knowing Elena was there on the other side, thinking the same thoughts that I was.
